Epic 3, Part II

Sending Out the Settlers

Now that the first scoring date had been reached, it was about time to found more cities. Even prior to 5AD,
it was clear that some cities would not be able to grow another time before population would be measured, so
as you can see in the screenshot from 5AD, I had already switched projects to libraries, settlers and workers.
I actually continued to produce settlers and workers for quite a while, and founded lots of cities, grabbing
some important resources while doing so: Iron, bananas, incense, silks, marble, and gems. To be able to make use
of most of them, I researched Calendar after Currency. Then, I beelined to Civil Service, to spread irrigation to
all cities to let them grow for the 1500AD mark.

I had founded a city far away near the French border to grab a gem resource, only to get one for free a few turns
later.

I don't really want to complain, but I would have preferred a gold or silver resource at this point.
Gems, gold and silver are worth two happy faces with forges, so
in this scenario this is quite powerful! Unfortunately, Louis had snatched away a dyes resource quite early,
another potential two-happy resource with theatres. Happiness resources were so important because for the 1500AD
scoring mark, I figured I couldn't afford to pay for gazillions of military police units again, so I had to
use other means to keep my citizens happy. I already had a lot fewer cottages than usual because I irrigated so much,
so my research rate was not very impressive anyway. Additionally having to pay for 10+ garrison units per city might
cost me victory, no sense in that!

One way of keeping up was trading, of course. It does not happen very often that an AI discovers Alphabet before I do,
but in this game I had other priorities.

Accelerating the Growth of my Empire

In the original Epic 3, T-hawk had concentrated on building the wonder Longevity before 1500AD, and had won the
competition. Something like Longevity was no longer in the game though, so I did not have many options of how
to accelerate the growth of my population in the empire. Of course there is still a wonder that grants you an extra
point of population in each city, the Hanging Gardens! This is a powerful wonder in this game, as it also
grants a health bonus. Alas, I waited too long before starting it, and it got built by a different civilization
in 1070AD. That went not so well.

So...there was not much left I could do to increase my population until 1500AD, other than founding more cities,
building more workers and making sure to irrigate a lot. Without a wonder like Longevity, and being too
stupid to start the Hanging Gardens in time, all I could do was to make sure to import luxuries to fight happiness
and health problems, and play a good builder's game, right?

Nah, wrong. If you face a problem in Civ 4, there's one answer that fits
in almost all cases, one solution that works almost all the time. I give you a hint with the following screenshot from
1250AD:

As you can see, I had 12 cities now, had irrigated a lot, and had connected some luxuries as well. All of my new cities
were building infrastructure, but the production of my core cities might give you a hint how I planned to accelerate
my growth curve. Another hint can be seen right in the middle of the shot, halfway between Huamanga and Chartres. And
in case it's too small for you to identify, let me show you a close-up:

Baguette, Cheese and Wine Let You Grow Faster

What better way is there to get 6-10 additional pop points every 6-7 turns than to steal them from your neighbour?
Louis, I really like your people. Friendly, productive, happy...in fact,
I like them so much, please give me some!

Sure, he had longbows, but that was nothing a healthy amount of suicide catapults and some experienced macemen
couldn't handle, especially considering that I had founded my northern city in such a way that the French empire
was divided in half, so Louis had some problems bringing in reinforcements. Oh, and Louis, now that you no
longer supply us with Dyes, do you mind if I take your source?

So, that makes an additional size 5 and a size 7 city for my empire. *munch*
*munch* I think his cities to the east
are the newest and thus probably not yet well-developed, so I decided to continue my conquest right into Louis'
heartlands in the north. Next up Lyons fell, a size 13(!) city, then my forces captured Orleans in 1358AD.

I did not meet much resistance other than small stacks of axes and longbows, which I lured out into the open and
then slaughtered with my macemen. I burnt two catapults per city on average to soften up its defenders so my
macemen could gather city raider promotions - catapults were easy to replace, and my main forces could hurry on
to the next city that way. It was a race against time now: Every new city I captured had to undergo several turns
of resistance, and I was not sure if a city under resistance would count for your population! So when my advance
stack arrived at Paris in 1376AD, I decided that the French capital city should be the last city I would take in this
war, as more cities wouldn't come out of resistance in time before 1500AD anyway.

Paris fell in 1394AD, and it contained the Great Lighthouse, the Great Library, and an Academy! Nice. Then, Louis gave
me Archery, Literature, his world map (I had discovered Paper by now), 230 gold and 3 gold per turn for peace.
Unfortunately, he couldn't be persuaded to part with some more useful tech like Feudalism, or Compass...